Dolphins and Barracuda

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6:30am and my alarm goes off. Not the best of wake ups but with a dive at 8 (have to be there 45 minutes beforehand) it will be a good morning. I headed out to grab some breakfast then woke the others up. Simon set up our gear then headed back to sleep as Phil told Matt, Jeff, Justin, and I the plan for the dive. We would head to a reef on the north side of the island then look for the whale sharks on our second dive. After a 20 minute boat ride, we made it to the reef. I took photos of the ride as the boys chilled on the roof. Today I decided not to go with a wet suit and just shorts. Justin and Jeff had tried it the day before and said it was better. We all got our gear on, did buddy checks, then jumped into the 28 degree water. It is another pure blue sky so we have great visibility in the crystal green water. It begins along a reef wall where we go down to 18m and look for cool fish. We are all certified now so it is just a fun dive where we can explore and do guy stuff (eg. Sit with a big coral between your legs, ok so I was the only one but...). We did flips and ninja stuff all along the wall with Jeff trying to surf on Justins air tank. At one point we were down at 80 feet which was nice. It was a great dive but we still never saw any large sea life. Our air gets low so we head back to the surface for a tank switch and nitrogen rest (when you dive your body accumulates nitrogen so surface time is needed between dives to get rid of most of it). Time to look for the sharks! We head off, sitting on the roof to get a good viewpoint for fins. We though we saw some but it was only some dolphins :/ although they are pretty cool too. Again we don't see them and head to a different reef a little disappointed. Our second dive is much like the first, swimming upside down and searching for cool fish. we spent another 50 minutes until our air runs out, then surface. I admit Justin and Jeff were right, diving in just shorts was amazing. Our team was the only one without wet suits, Phil did a good job converting us. We then jumped on the boat and headed to a beach restaurant that only had boat access. On the washroom door was Aaron's tattoo so I took a photo. After lunch we headed back to the dock, all our dives complete. There were some barracuda next to the dock which we watched for awhile before cleaning our gear and settling down in the sun. Justin and Jeff took out a kayak and headed out to a half sunk freighter while the rest of us chilled on the dock. From what I heard it was pretty cool with different rooms and such. The night was uneventful as we all just lay on the dock talking. The island was quiet so we stayed at Altons and had a fairly early night.

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